


The Time Traveler's Yarn

by unlimitedlemonade



Series: Echoes Verse [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Neglect, Echoes verse, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Original Fiction, Time Travel, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 03:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unlimitedlemonade/pseuds/unlimitedlemonade
Summary: -Original Fiction-Time must be allowed to run her course. Humans need to be free, to live and die, to conquer and fall, to progress and learn.The Echo Garrison is an ancient order of time travelers that goes back to the very beginning of time itself. When a runaway child stumbles upon the order just days before the next recruitment cycle, she ignites a blazing trail of doubts and hopes. She could just be the weapon the Garrison needs to ward off its arch-enemies and restore the balance of progress...If they can manage to turn this scrawny, anxious kid into a proper agent.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Yoooo. 
> 
> This is my first work posted on here and this is also my first time posting my original fiction for the world to see. Please be gentle with me. The Time Traveler's Yarn or "Echoes Verse" as it gets called on my computer, has been a special project for me for several years. It's an extensive mess that I'm hoping to unravel by forcing myself to post it online. Feedback is appreciated. Enjoy.
> 
> T/W: Allusions to suicide ideation, mentions of a dead body and bullet wounds.
> 
> Note: I selected the archive warning for graphic depictions of violence just in case is gets more graphic as it goes on.

If you need me, I’m gone forever.

She’s polite enough to leave this note for them. If they care to climb up to this cramped, dusty corner of the house, they will find it. She thinks about leaving one for her best friend as well, but there’s no way to get it to her in time, and she has to leave. It’s now or never. That is what she tells herself.

  
Out the window she goes, climbing down the lattice. It’s not meant to support a person’s weight, but she’s no more than a bean pole. She hits the ground running and tears across the perfectly manicured front lawn. The white picket fence sprouts up like long, wooden teeth. It doesn’t stand a chance against the determination sparking in her chest. She clears it, stops to catch her breath, then clears out down the dark street.  
  
From this point on, she has no name. She has been a dirty little secret, locked away in a stuffy room in a forgotten corner of a big house. She hates her name with every fiber in her scrawny little body. Enough to never utter it again. It is easier to be nameless than to be a prisoner. It is even easier to leave her old name behind.  
  
Her plan is to be gone forever. She takes off through the neighborhood with a backpack full of an eleven-year-old’s idea of essentials and a bloodstream shot with fear. Her footsteps echo in the dark. The sound bounces off of houses and pavement until her ears only hear dread. Huge houses loom in the darkness. Shadows gather under trees and bushes, hiding all manner of monsters. At any moment, something -or someone- could jump out of the darkness. They could drag her screaming back to that house.  
  
She can’t stop running. They can’t find her, no one can. She won’t let them drag her back by her hair. The sight of their glaring, gleaming smiles and empty eyes makes her crave the whole bottle of medicine, just to make it all go away. Nothing has been able to fix her but maybe taking everything in the medicine cabinet would make the funny feeling in her chest go away, or make the waterfall in her head quiet into a stream.  
  
Her heart threatens to beat straight out of her chest. She grips the straps on her backpack until her knuckles turn white. She’s breathing hard, but there’s no time to stop. The farther she gets, the safer she’ll be.  
  
A screeching whistle fills the air. She trips. Her nose meets pavement and pain shoots into her head. She looks up, and her breath hitches. A red light rises in the sky, like some sort of evil Christmas star, turning the whole world red. Then it shatters, right next to the full moon and rains down in a show of smoke. The whole sky is bleeding. Her heartbeat triples. She’s breathing hard and fast, chest going up and down but she feels no air. She can’t breathe, can’t think.  
  
What’s happening? What is happening? She crawls to her knees. Gravel pinches her skin. Panic fills every crevice of her tiny body. All she can hear is her heartbeat pounding like a bass drum between her ears. She can’t- she can't- she just wants to leave everything behind, she can’t-  
  
A silhouette appears at the end of the street. It streaks towards her. She lunges to her feet and scrambles down the pavement. It might be the fastest she’s ever moved. The silhouette follows.  
It’s them. She knows it’s them, her family, her parents. They know. They’re coming. She forces herself to go faster, faster. She keeps going, doesn’t look back, afraid if she turns her neck to look the silhouette will be right behind her, reaching out to snare her hair and drag her back. Once they catch her, once they take her back, then they’ll-

  
She breaks off the sidewalk and tears across a stranger’s lawn. She has to move faster than the thing chasing her, or move smarter. But she’s not smart. Almost everyone tells her this, so moving faster is her only choice. She scrabbles up the tall, wooden fence and topples down the other side in a blind panic. In seconds she’s pulling herself over another fence. From here, she plunges blindly into the woods.

  
Branches whip at her face. Brambles snake around her ankles, pulling her in every direction but the one she wants. She ignores stabbing thorns as she pushes carelessly through the forest. _I have to move, keep going, before they get you, c’mon._ It is the most basic part of her; running away. She is small and weak and meant only for running away.

  
Her legs choke to a stop. There’s someone in front of her. They’re laying down. No, not a person. Well, what used to be a person. A no longer alive person. A body. There’s a hole in the center of their forehead, bits of brain and blood leaking out. She swallows the urge to vomit but she can’t bring herself to look away. Panic locks her legs to the spot. It’s useless to fight. She retches into a patch of grass. She’s leaving everything behind tonight, even her dinner, apparently.

Something keeps drawing her eyes back to the body. They’re wearing strange black clothes that seem to make them merge into the shadows. A black bandana is tied over their hair above the wet, gaping bullet hole. Their empty, green eyes stare endlessly upwards. Maybe they were looking at the sky when they died.  
On the ground next to the body is a device of some sort. It’s covered in dials and numbers and tiny symbols she can’t read. Coming out from a circular bulb is a steady green light. It calls to her; a beacon in her ocean of panic. With shaking hands, as if the body might rise up and accuse her of stealing their device, she picks it up and studies it. Her eyes roam over impossible numbers. The green light is actually a button, worn from countless depressions.

It starts from almost nothing. A strange whispering trickles into her ears. She whirls around, searching for the source of the sound. She finds nothing. Her vision begins to morph, tunneling until all she can see is the device weighing down in her tiny hands. Something in her bloodstream screams at her. Something that, for once, isn’t panic. She presses the button.  
The ground opens abruptly beneath her feet; a tear in the very reality where she stands. She falls into the tear, that opens like a gaping maw to welcome her.

  
This is the night she disappears.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. All grammar and other mistakes are my own. 
> 
> T/W: referenced dead body and child neglect.

If you need me, I’m gone forever. It’s all she can think about as she falls. She screams. Screams until she can’t breathe. Her lungs are working but she can feel no air. Tears prick and tear away from her eyes. She clutches tightly at the little device like it’s the only thing she has left. Honestly, it might as well be. Colors and light and noise swirl past her like cars screaming down a highway. She’s falling, falling, falling, but there’s no floor or ceiling or anything at all to catch her. Head over heels and back again she goes, dizzy and sick with her stomach spun into knots. Nothing is solid. Everything is going too fast. Until it isn’t.

The same gaping jaws that swallowed her up now spit her out sideways. Just as quickly as it opened, the tear vanishes. She slams back onto solid ground. Everything stings; rocks and dirt stab into her. Hey, she can see the stars from here, and the glowing curve of the moon directly above her. But wasn’t the moon full when she left? 

Everything aches. The starry sky is spread wide above her like a wide eye, but darkness creeps in along the sides of her vision. More than the night-time darkness, a newer, more sinister kind of dark. Her head throbs and she can’t quite breathe right.

She tries her best to keep blinking at the stars, but she’s sinking. The ground beneath her starts swallowing her like a dusty tongue. The darkness creeps further and further into her vision. Everything hurts and nothing is okay. She has no idea where she is.

_ What if I’m not far away enough? What if they find me? What if they’re coming for me right now?  _ She has to get back on her feet. She has to keep going. She’s not certain the other side of the world is far enough to escape from what she’s left behind.

Big, black chunks eat away at most of her sight. She swallows down the pain and crawls. One hand at a time, she pulls herself through the dust on her stomach. Her whole body screams in pain, but she can’t muster up the energy to scream herself. The world in front of her swirls and swims until all she can see is one big bowl of soup. The tears streaming down her face do not help at all.

A light approaches from behind her. Is the sun rising? It turns out to be a horse and rider carrying a lantern. They fly past her like bats out of hell. Where did someone get a horse? There are no horses around her neighborhood. Where have I even seen a horse? The horse and rider nearly trample her as they streak past. The rider lets out several curses.

What even is my life anymore? Am I going to die here in this dust? On these orange rocks? At least this is better than her family finding her. She wonders if the end will be more peaceful than the middle. The world glows brighter. 

“Hello?” says the horse rider. He holds up his lantern. It’s too bright.

“Nrrgmh?” she says. Incredible. What a great first impression.

“Holy shit.” he gasps “what the hell happened?” He crouches down by her side.

“I knew there were some mean bandits out here, but a little kid? You gotta be kiddin’ me. Kid, can you hear me?”

“Nrgh?” she replies. Yes, that’s really helpful.

“Hey there, it’s alright. Yer gonna be fine.” he soothes

Her brain takes this as a sign of safety and uses this opportunity to promptly pass out. She doesn’t dream. It’s for the best, really. There’s no telling what would happen if she did that. When she comes to, the world is a single, plain shade of green. Good job, you broke everything.

She musters the strength to sit up and sees an old cotton tent has been pitched around her. For a split second, she thinks she might be back on that field trip she took with her best friend. She’s the only one in the tent, however, so she squashes that theory and moves on. Besides, this tent is old. Like, really old. Not like the fancy waterproof ones they have at the shiny sports stores where her father buys his golf clubs.

She experiments with crawling out of the folded-up blankets. Her leg is wrapped to a stick, and there are a few old-fashioned cloth bandages around the rest of her, too.  _ I still have three limbs, I can crawl,  _ she decides, and creeps to the front of the tent. She peers out of the tent flap. Outside, the world is vastly different than when she left the house.

Far off mountains glow orange in the growling light of dawn. A few scraggly plants cling to dry, red dirt. A black horse investigates the ground near the old log where it’s tied up. Wherever the hell she is, it certainly isn’t anywhere close to the neighborhood.

“Mornin’,” says the horse rider.

She squeals and flinches so hard she flops onto her stomach.

“Did’n mean to spook ya,” he offers a small smile

She takes an embarrassing amount of time to settle her panicked breathing before crawling the rest of the way out of the tent. Her clothes are already dirty beyond saving, so there’s no real shame in crawling. Except there is.

The horse rider -cowboy?- is sitting next to a dying fire. He holds a knife in one hand and whittles a stick he holds in the other. Besides the mean-looking knife, there’s nothing actually mean about the man himself, not yet, anyway. In fact, he seems almost gentle.  _ I still have to be careful. You have to behave or he’ll hurt you. I’ll run away from him, too, if I have to. _

His dark eyes glint slowly but without menace in the receding darkness. He has no hair on the top of his head; a bit of dawn catches on the top of his dark scalp. He’s smiling, which she takes as a good sign. She also can’t see any guns near him, so that’s good. Her father had guns.  _ Cowboys usually have guns, though, so he definitely has one somewhere. What else to cowboys usually have? Hats? _ She needs to be prepared. She likes to be. In case she does something wrong and has to hide.  _ Wait, where’s my backpack? _

“First thing’s first,” he drawls “m’name’s Paki.”

That doesn’t sound like a cowboy name, but she doesn’t know a lot of them in the first place. 

“I was ridin’ through last night when I found ya. You’ve got a broken leg and were bleedin’ pretty bad. How ‘bout you tell me what happened?”

Last night comes barreling through her head at top speed. Everything all at once. She freezes, a gasp caught in her throat. She can’t get her mouth to move right.  _ Would he even believe me? Rainbow tunnels and magic buttons? _

“I don’t remember,” she lies

“Surely you remember somethin’”, Paki presses “somethin’ I can use to help ya get home.”

An invisible fist closes around her chest.  _ No. Absolute not. Literally anywhere else but there, please. _ She pulls away.

“Hey now, I won’t hurt ya,” he soothes

“I can’t go back,” she squeaks out

He says nothing, just keeps his eyes fixed on her with something a little darker than kindness. She can feel it settle on top of her skin.

“I can’t. Please don’t make me.”

“Take a breath, now, little miss. How about ya start with yer name?”

She shakes her head.

“At least let me know what I can call ya.” Paki says

She picks her brain. What can she say that won’t connect her to the people she left behind. She can’t tell him her last or middle name, and she sure as hell isn’t giving anyone her first name. She’s just about to blurt out her best friend’s name when an epiphany hits her.

“If you have to, call me Mel.”

“Ah, yer initials then?” says Paki

Shoot. He’s smart. Really smart. She’s going to have to be incredibly careful. There’s no telling what he’ll do to her. He’ll know if she makes a mistake, or breaks a rule, or talks too much, or-

Focus.

She nods because lying about this will just get her into more trouble and that’s the last thing she needs right now. She just needs to figure out how far from the house she is. Then she can figure out which direction to go to get farther away and start a new life. Maybe she could be a cowboy?

_ Cowgirl? Cowperson? Outlaw? Yeah, outlaw sounds about right. _

“Right then, Mel, how’d ya end up out here?” asks Paki

“I ran away from home,” she admits

“A runaway, then. I know that life,” says Paki

A glimmer of hope sparks in her chest “so you won’t make me go back?”

Paki frowns “now I didn’t say that. Yer folks must be mighty worried about ya.”

“Please don’t,” she says in such a small voice that something inside Paki must shift because he looks at her like he’s suddenly studying something new. Or maybe she’s just pathetic enough he’s starting to take pity on her.

“I see,” he says

She feels like something under a microscope in a crowded classroom. 

The drawl slides right off his voice and he sounds like a different man when he speaks. “Now look, kid, I didn’t want to interrogate you off the bat seeing as you busted yourself up pretty bad, but you have a lot to answer for. How’d you get a Rintspeed?”

“A Rinst-what?”

“This.” He holds up the device she had taken (stolen) off of the dead body last night. The one that had opened up the strange tunnel under her feet. Either that or it had made her space out and daydream hard enough to end up in the old west. Either one makes just as much sense right now.

“The Rintspeed is a dangerous device. It manipulates temporal barriers. It isn’t a toy or a plaything, understand?”

_ Who is this guy? If he isn’t a cowboy, what is he?  _ Paki’s voice has gone so cold, his eyes so fierce, she thinks he might be a wholly different person.

She nods her head several times.

“I didn’t think the Nemean Pride would dare recruit so young, but then again, so do we.” Paki sighs “These devices don’t grow on trees. So tell me, how’d you get this?”

“I found it,” she answers

“Try again,” he says

“Really,” she insists. She tries blinking away the memory of the dead body but it seems to be seared to the back of her eyelids. “I was running away from home and I found it. It had a green light on it...so I might have picked it up and pressed the glowing button.” 

“Kid, do you know what this does?”

She shakes her head.

“In stupid terms,” he sighs “it’s a time machine.”

Her eyes lock onto the small device in Paki’s hand.

“So,” she ventures timidly “that colorful tunnel thing…”

“Wasn’t actually a tunnel,” he confirms “Not really. What you saw as a tunnel was the Rift. The place outside of time. It can appear as a tunnel to some.”

“The moon,” she blurts

“What?”

“Last night. The moon was different from when I left, but it’s only been one night.”

“Did you really run away from home?” he asks

She nods earnestly

“And you have no affiliation to the Lions?”

“My best friend and I saw lions at a zoo once.” she offers

Her head is spinning with all this new information.  _ Time travel? People who know how to use time travel? Are there more people like Paki? How does he know what a Rint-thing is? What do they do with the time travel? Why didn’t they stop Hitler, or the plague, or- _

“You’re really just a kid who found this by accident.” he sighs

“I’ll do whatever you want,” she offers “please don’t send me back.”

“Don’t worry, kid,” Paki puts a hand on her shoulder. She flinches when he makes contact, but he doesn’t take his hand away. Actually, his hand is gentle and warm on her shoulder. It cracks open something in her chest. Something yearning and painful. All too soon, he takes his hand away. She almost wishes he didn’t. 

“I won’t send you back, but I do have to figure out what to do with you?”

“What do you mean?” her voice shakes

“For starters, you got a bum leg.” 

Oh, yeah. That. A broken leg really puts a damper on escape plans, doesn’t it?

“And I’m not about to leave a lost kid stranded in the asscrack of nowhere in the mid-nineteenth century. Imagine how that would look in my mission report. It would really help me sleep at night knowing I got you looked at by a proper healer.”

“Mission?” she echoes

“Yeah, a time travel mission.”

“Can I help? I’ll do whatever you need me to. I can be useful, I promise.”

“Cool your jets, kiddo,” Paki laughs “I already finished it. I was on my way to my launch point when I bumped into you.” 

He hums to himself for a moment. Earnest energy glitters in her eyes.

“I’ll tell you what, kid. How about we make a deal?” His voice is smooth like he’s offered this a hundred times. “You give me the Rintspeed, and I take you with me. Once I finish my mission report and get cleared to go, I’ll take you wherever you want to go, within reason, of course. I get all this nonsense taken care of, and you get a place to crash, some hot food and your leg fixed up before you head on your merry way. How’s that sound?”

“Deal,” she gasps. The glitter in her eyes turns fierce, like a cat stalking prey.

Paki smiles and holds out his hand. She shakes it with all the strength she can muster.

* * *

Soon, they are astride Paki’s horse with the remains of the camp vanishing behind them. 

“Hold tight,” Paki urges and clicks for his horse to speed up

All traces of the cool early morning vanish as the sun beats down on them. The horse jostles her as it gallops over orange-red dirt. She holds tight to the little knob at the front of the saddle and prays Paki will catch her if she slips. She’s never ridden a horse before. If you take away the jostling, there’s something energizing in the way the creature sends them speeding across the mountain-gated landscape.

When the sun is at the highest point in the sky, her stomach growls. It’s so loud it can be heard over the pounding of the horse’s hooves.

“Here,” Paki reaches into a pocket on his vest. He hands her a strange cube wrapped up in some sort of filmy later.

“Eat it. You can just toss the wrapper. It’ll degrade in a few days.”

She goes to work on the bar. It’s a lot chewier than she thought it would be and thicker. It feels like jerky but tastes a little of fruit. She wrinkles her nose.

“Ha, yeah, those aren’t the best. I’ll get you some real food when we get to the Thread.”

She forces herself to finish off the cube. It leaves a funny taste in her mouth. She wants to ask what flavor it is, where it comes from, who makes it, and where he got it. Is it future food? Is it from the old days? Or special time traveler food? What about candy? Do time travelers have special candy?

The questions bubble and fizz into her lungs. They bounce on her tongue. She bites them down. Everyone hates it when she does this. She asks too many questions and always too fast. She talks too much. People hate her from the second she opens her mouth. She can’t let Paki hate her. He’s her ticket to getting far away from her family. Maybe he could take her far into the future where they could never find her; so far into the future everyone related to her would be dead. The idea makes her head spin.

“Are we almost there?” the question slips from her mouth before she can stop it. Stupid. Stupid question. Stupid girl. Everybody hates that question. He’s going to hate you. If you were going to ask a question couldn’t you have picked a better one?

“Almost,” his tone betrays no malice. Then, as if sensing her need to speak, he adds “hey, let’s play a game.”

“What kind of game?”

“The question game. I’ll ask you a question, and then you get to ask me one. It’ll be fun, trust me.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll go first,” Paki says “How old are you?”

“I’m eleven and three-quarters. My turn. How old are you?”

“Seventy-two.”

“That’s old,” she blurts out

Paki laughs so hard, he nearly falls out of the saddle

“You’re a hoot, kiddo.” he smiles

“I’m sorry, that was rude, I’m sorry,” she ducks her head like something might reach out and slap her.

“No, you’re right,” he says “I am old. And I’ve seen a lot of shit. Er, crap, sorry. So, Mel, why don’t you go by your name? Don’t trust a stranger?”

She’s quiet for a moment. The words swirl around in her mouth, sour and curdled. “I don’t like it.” she settles on saying “it’s a bad name.”

“I see.” he says “your turn.”

“What’s your favorite place in the future?”

“What do you mean by future? Anything can be the future if you go far back enough.”

“Past 2016,” she says

“Hmm, that’s a tough one. I’ve been to a lot of places. I’d have to say Crescent Beach in 2095. They clean the garbage from the ocean a few years before that and it’s one of the prettiest places I’ve seen. The water is so clear, and the flowers in the spring are beautiful.”

The way Paki describes this makes it sound like paradise. Secretly, she begins a list of possible places where she can disappear after all of this is over. Maybe she can go there and live on the beach?

“How about your favorite place?” asks Paki

“My best friend’s house,” she answers without hesitation

A heavy feeling settles on her shoulders. She never said goodbye to her friend and now she’s going to goodness knows where on the back of a horse with a time traveler leading the way. She never said goodbye, and even though her friend transferred schools and left her all alone, she thinks it’s not very fair of her to leave like she did. But there’s no going back now.

“Y’know kid,” Paki interrupts her downward spiraling thoughts “eleven and three quarters is around the age we start taking recruits.”

She perks up, tries to twist around to look at him, but being stuck on a horse with a broken leg makes it rather difficult. “Oh?” she says, even though she wants so much more.

“Uh-huh,” he replies “for time travelers, mostly, though not all of us are time travelers. Now that I think about it, there’s a recruitment cycle coming up. If you’re thinking about where to go after this all blows over, you could always think about staying.”

She stares at the horizon ahead of the horse, where the orange land seems to stretch on forever. How does Paki know? Can he see into her head? Does time travel give people the power to do that?

“I guess,” she says. 

But Paki can probably tell what she’s really thinking. He’s seventy-two; he knows a lot more than she does. Her list of places to go is pitifully small and consists entirely of his suggestions. At this point, any idea is worth considering. Right now, she’s on a horse with a time traveler heading to whatever a ‘launch point’ is to get back to his secret base. Anything is possible now.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Paki slides effortlessly back into the game

Her thoughts slam into a wall. She nearly chokes on her own spit. Words whirl in her head, all out of reach. She knows what she wants to say, but how can she put it into words? How does she tell him she stopped thinking about it years ago because she never expected to get this far? How does she say she thought she would be stopped on the way out of the neighborhood, out of the house. She knows what she wanted to be. She wanted to be happy, safe, free.

“Hey,” she snarls “it’s my turn.”

“Just checking if you were paying attention,” Paki says warmly, but there’s something else in his voice. Like he knows something from her silence.

“What’s your base like?” she settles on asking. She might as well prepare herself for what’s up ahead.

“Indescribable.”

“That’s not fair.”

A good-natured laugh rumbles behind her. “It’s big. Much bigger than what you’re thinking. Our own personal city. The agents live in halls along a cobbled road, and from my hall, you can see across the canal to the Great Field and the mountains beyond it.”

“You have mountains?”

“Yeah. Huge ones where the snow on top spills into a beautiful river. The river leads to the canal and a huge waterfall at the mouth of the city where a pool is. Sometimes, between missions, I like to climb to the top of Namid’s Peak and look down at everything. It makes me feel like a little kid again.”

“That sounds nice,” she smiles

“It is,” says Paki. There’s a slight wetness to his voice, and he swallows. “It’s home.”

“So your base is a whole city?”

“You’ll just have to see for yourself.”

She stares ahead at the landscape in front of her and thinks of mountains spilling into fields and fields spilling into cities, and something like hope spills into her chest.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I'm three for three. Anyway, here's the third installment of the story so far.
> 
> No content warnings I can think of. Let me know if there's something I should know about.

**Chapter 3**

The second trip through the tunnel of madness -the Rift- is much better than the first trip. For starters, she knows it’s coming this time. She can at least prepare herself before she is hurled into the chaos.

Paki ties the two of them together with rope from the horse’s saddlebag.

“We usually have gear for this, but we can make do,” he explains. She doesn’t miss the tiny glint of uncertainty in his eyes.

Paki keeps her pressed close to him the whole trip through, coaxing her through breathing properly. A vortex of color and light whirl past them at a ripping pace. She musters enough bravery to crack her eyes open and look around. The Rift roars around her in all directions. Strange shapes pull and form in the colors around her. Lights, like dazzling stars, explode with a blinding crash. She clings tight to Paki as they spin and flip in the raging whirlwind.

A shape, like the head of some great beast, takes shape out of the blur. She can’t tear her eyes off of it. A beam of light, like a slice of sunlight, cuts through the chaos. She swears she can see something; a body, several bodies all caught in a horrific web of lightning. The scene splits into flames, everything being consumed into a single spark, a crashing bell tolling away. As quickly as they form, the pictures are washed away.

“Paki-”

“It’s okay. Hang on,” he grips her tighter as they cartwheel through the chaos. A light; gray and watery, but powerful, like the light of the water’s surface from the bottle of a swimming pool starts to wash everything out.

“Hold on,” he shouts. Paki curls his arms tighter around her as they tumble out of the Rift and into the bright light.

Fortunately, the Rift is kind to them. The tear in temporal matter opens up on the side and they tumble out of the Rift like tumbling down a flight of stairs. Paki’s body remains curled around her as they roll several times. They come to a messy stop. It really could have been worse. She should remember that.

All she can think about, however, is the furious pain in her leg. She doesn’t even know where they’ve landed. She’s on her back, crying up at the sky for the second time in two days. Well, now she’s two for two. Maybe she can keep this pathetic train going even longer. Who knows?

“It’s gonna be alright,” Paki soothes. “I’m sorry about the landing.” he sounds almost pathetic in the face of a crying child. Isn’t he supposed to be a powerful time traveler?

Her face is turned to the sky, but she can’t see the sun. Everything is white and dazzling. Plain. Her head lolls in pain and sees a girl lying on the floor several feet from her. A man eerily similar to Paki is leaning over the other girl, talking into a tiny device.

No, wait. That’s her. Her reflection. She looks away before the sight can burn itself into her memory.

Soon, several people draped in gray clothes are leaning over her, talking to themselves. Paki stays by her head, murmuring assurances and apologies.

“Why the hell did you bring a linear child back with you?” one of them asks

“Just inject her,” Paki shouts

There is a sharp pain in her left arm, then bliss. The pain in her leg putters out into numbness. Her whole body feels like it's been slipped into an ice bath. Her fingers are jelly. She scrapes them along the white tiled floor, searching for anything to grab. She smacks her lips together to test if her mouth feels like it did when she got a cavity filled at the dentist. Nope, she can still feel her mouth.

Paki and a person in gray clothes help her sit up.

“You might feel a little dizzy from the painkillers,” says Gray Clothes “but the feeling will dissipate in a little while. We’ve given you a regenerative booster to speed the healing and a brace. The break is minor, so you’ll be walking soon.”

“Hnng?” she mutters

“She’s out of it,” the person in gray tells Paki “it’s the combination of the painkillers and the booster. It tends to make patients space out. You’ll see.”

She rests her eyes for just a second. When she opens them, she feels much better. A moment later, the same person leans over her again.

“Feeling better?”

“Wha?”

“You’ve been here for over twenty-four hours, kiddo.” says Paki. She looks back over at him. He’s not wearing different clothes. She can’t tell if any time has really passed.“Can you stand up, or do you need crutches? Should we get her a wheelchair?” asks Paki

“The bone still needs to heal before she can put wait on it, you idiot. She should be resting, not galavanting around after you.”

Paki glares at the man in gray clothes.

“Perhaps this will work,” says a new voice. Everyone in the room turns to look. A short woman with a flat nose dressed in dazzling blue robes stares at them.

All the people dressed in gray skitter around like startled mice. Wordlessly, they take the futuristic wheelchair from the woman and help their patient gently up into it. Her leg feels weird. She looks down. There’s a boot-like brace laced up to just under her knee. It’s white and seems to glow.

“Well,” says the woman. Despite being a half-foot taller, Paki seems dwarfed in her energy. She feels like a speck, floating in a sea of confusion and painkillers. She is a mote of dust in the presence of this strange woman.

“Starwatcher,” Paki bows his head. She finds herself doing the same.

“Paki,” the woman greets, but disappointment edges her tone. “We have a lot to talk about. But first, might I have a moment alone with our…surprise guest?”

“Starwatcher, let me-”

She raises her brows. Paki’s mouth opens and closes like fish until he finally clamps it closed and keeps it shut. With a worried glance back at her, he leaves her alone with the strange woman in this strange room. Clinical light glints off of the white tiles and mirror-lined walls.

The woman -Starwatcher, Paki had called her- stares at her for a moment before speaking. It’s really only a moment, but with the painkillers bubbling in her bloodstream it doesn’t feel that way.

“You are a strange child, and I have seen my fair share of them,” is how the Starwatcher begins.

For her part, she can only swallow messily; a heavy gulp of nothing.

“But where are my manners,” says the Starwatcher “I am known as Starwatcher, and you are?”

She shakes her head. Words refuse to form on her tongue. They crumble in her head before they can even get to her throat.

“As I thought. Nevermind then. You have a very peculiar signature, young one. It lit up our equipment like nothing else, and I must admit, it caught my eye. Of course, I did try to look you up.”

All the air leaves her for a single, terrible moment.

“I couldn’t find anything. Not a single trace of your signature before you ran into Paki. And no trace of your signature before the night when you ‘left’. Very interesting. I have met thousands, perhaps millions, and here you are; a nameless child eluding us all. You might be the most powerful little girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” she blurts out. Her cheeks run splotchy pink with nerves. She shakes.

The Starwatcher kneels down next to the wheelchair. “No, no, young one, we would never hurt you,” she says gently “we will, however, have to send you back,”

A bolt of lightning courses through her. The shaking triples. Her hands are sweating. She can hear her heart thundering in her chest, shaking her even more. It feels like her throat is full of sand.

“No, wait, please, you can do whatever you want. Please don’t send me back,”

The woman studies her for a moment. Even if she didn’t have a broken leg, she is pinned to her seat by the intense ocean eyes of the woman in front of her. Those two eyes pull her apart, piece by piece. Her head starts to buzz, but of course, it could just be the fear pouring off of her.

“Interesting. Don’t you want to go home?”

She shakes her head. “It’s gone, it’s-” she croaks

Starwatcher hums. “I can’t help but notice you brought a Rintspeed with you. You will of course, have to turn it over to me.”

She notices she’s holding the device again. She thought Paki took it, but maybe he had given it back before they got to here -wherever here is. Maybe this was part of honoring their deal. She clutches it tight in her little fists.

“Wait, you can’t take it yet. Paki said-”

“Paki says many things, my dead. Unfortunately, he is not in charge.”

A million little volts of shock vibrate through her body. She deflates. Her deal with Paki was her only plan for getting away. Without their deal, would he still take her somewhere safe? Her vision goes blurry. Then she realizes it is tears pouring down her face. She sniffles.

“Listen,” the Starwatcher says. “Paki is a member of the Garrison, an ancient order stretching back to the beginning of time itself. Paki’s intentions may have been good at heart, but he is a part of a greater whole. A greater whole with a greater mission at stake. We have rules that we cannot break simply for our own desires.”

“Please,” she begs “I can be good. I can be useful,”

“I’m sure you are both, my dear, but rules are rules.”

“Wait!” she says “You said my signature, whatever that is, was special. Paki said there’s a recruiting thing coming up soon. I could be recruited. I could stay here, as one of you.”

Starwatcher seems to consider this for a moment.

“And why would you do that?” Starwatcher asks

“Paki says this place is his home. It could be mine, too. I don’t have one, and I need one.”

“This place will not be safer, child. It will not be easier, or sweeter, or more patient.”

“But it could be better,” she locks eyes with the Starwatcher and fixes her with the most determined look she can manage.

“If you offer to stay,” the Starwatcher says, “you can’t ever go back. You can’t leave for anywhere else. You will be one of us, forever. You might not make it as a time traveler. Do you understand this?”

“Yes,”

“Very well.” The Starwatcher rises and leaves the room.

She sits there, on her own, stranded in a wheelchair.

The Starwatcher returns with Paki.

“It is your turn to explain yourself,” she says to him. “It seems you struck a deal with this child.”

“I thought taking the Rintspeed by force would be below me. Isn’t diplomacy our priority when available? It’s the Lions that hunt and kill for the Rintspeeds. Besides, is it not our duty sworn before Echo and all her followers to help others?”

“Our sworn duty is to maintain and protect the balance, Paki.” Starwatcher replies “You can’t just decide who and when you want to help. Thinking we have the power to make such decisions is what has led some astray.”

“I just felt something, ma’am. Something about her that pulled me to help. Surely you can understand that?”

“Your intentions are noble, Paki, as always. Your actions, however…” she pauses

Paki looks guiltily at the floor.

“I have come to a decision on this matter,” Starwatcher announces “The young one has forfeited her deal with you and the Rintspeed in her possession in exchange for recruitment. Two weeks from now, she will enter the training program to become a full member of the Echo Garrison.” she turns to look directly at Paki “Since this has all been your venture thus far, it will be your responsibility to look after her and provide her with all she needs.”

“But-”

The Starwatcher continues “It is always best to take responsibility for one’s ventures, is it not, Paki?”

“Yes, of course, Starwatcher.” he mumbles

“Excellent. For now, our guest can bunk with you. I’ll have you taken off of the mission roster until her recruitment is finalized. Until then, I expect you to take care of her and maintain your regular duties.”

“Yes, Starwatcher.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
